Quote #18

In the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power, but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.

More from Thomas Hobbes

  1. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latte…
  2. Man gives indifferent names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions; as they that approve a private opinion cal…
  3. By Manners, I mean not here decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his tee…
  4. And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or…
  5. The 'value' or 'worth' of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
  6. In these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotions towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for progn…
  7. The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame:
  8. For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

All Thomas Hobbes quotes